Specimen 001
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Dean is hired by Zachariah to fathom the new creature he's fished out of the sea, and that would be Castiel obviously.PS Deviant art now has images for this story - thanks to BobbleHeadedJesus and togainyourtrust.  and more
1. Chapter 1

_Umm...don't judge me? Please? It's a sickness and an evil that distracts from other things, but I keep having ideas and...well, this is where those ideas lead. _

Dean gets the call via com while he's up on deck staring out over the churning waves and trying to keep hold of his sanity. Figures Zachariah's new pet scientist couldn't handle things down below, not that he disliked Chuck but the guy seriously wasn't built for this. No one was, that thing was just too crazy for words.

He arrives back in his lab to find his notes disturbed, his reels of footage in disarray and the tank in the middle of the room churning as a pissed off pile of inky tentacles lashes out at everything within reach, sending water, weed and grit over everyone in the room.

Specimen 001. The first proof of the missing link. Frankly it's just an amazing thing to look at, though it does make his head hurt in some ways. A half man, half octopus hybrid, with a human torso atop glistening coils of black tentacles. It was an awesome discovery, and sure to make the career of all involved in its capture.

He ducks another explosive wave of water. He was right about Chuck not being up to containing the thing. They've only had it a few days and Dean's been shooting it up with sedatives the whole time, so this is the first time he's seen it awake and moving.

"Get it under control!" A soaked Zachariah orders as he flees the lab, Chuck hot on his heels.

Dean dutifully picks up his tranquilizer gun and approaches the tank. The waves die down and he sees a flash of pale skin in the murky water as the creature observes his surroundings. It's only when he gets closer that he sees the thing in its entirety, and he gets a shock when he does.

Specimen 001 is cowering in the far corner of the tank, tentacles furled around itself, arms over its head as it curls into the smallest possible ball.

It hadn't been fighting, it had been panicking.

Dean taps his knuckle curiously against the glass. Clucking with his tongue gently. The creature stirs minutely, shifting its limbs to peer at him.

"C'mon...let's see you." Dean says, mostly to himself. But the creature uncurls and moves across the floor of the tank, its dark nest of limbs pressing to the glass as his face closely inspects the pressed shape of Dean's hand against the surface of the tank. It swims upwards and when Dean hears it break the surface of the water he backs away.

Pale skinned and soaked to his core, the creature looks down on him with inhumanly blue eyes. His hand rises out of the water and he curls it around the edge of the tank, where a few tendrils follow after a seconds pause.

Dean clutches the gun tighter. The things eyes track the movement, and quick as a blink he's gone, retreating to his corner again in fear.

Knowing that this is the stupidest thing he could possibly do, Dean approaches the tank again, only this time he reaches up and dangles his fingers over the edge, splashing a little to get the things attention. The dark shape at the base of the tank moves and Dean feels a light pressure against his fingers as exploratory tentacles slide over them, one at a time. The touch recedes and after a few seconds he feels fingers twining with his own, drawing his hand gently, further into the water. He holds back for a second, feeling fear as the chill hand grips his own. Then there's warmth, heat on his hand, and he realises that the creature has his fingers in its mouth only when its tongue sweeps between the digits. The touch is curious and not threatening, but still Dean pulls his hand away. Shocked when the thing pops above the surface again, looking curious and a little upset by his sudden withdrawal.

It extends its own pale hand for Dean's inspection, one tentacle wrapped along his arm casually.

Dean touches the fingers reluctantly, but the flesh isn't slimy, it feels like a regular human hand, only wet and cold. The blue eyes are bright on him, its head turning this way and that as it looks at their hands. He moves to touch the tentacle but it is withdrawn sharply, the creatures face marred with a scared, shocked look.

"Sorry..." Dean says without thinking, realising too late that the creature won't understand. It blinks and its hand moves in his as it frowns, trying to fathom the word. Dean squeezes its hand before letting go.

The creature stares at him a moment longer, not breaking eye contact as it sinks beneath the water.

Dean leaves the room in confusion to note down his findings.

_Castiel crouches in the corner of his enclosure watching the thing work. He's seen this creature around the place before and remembers him from the day he was captured. He vaguely recalls him along with the sharp pains that yielded him unto sleep again._

_He's still less frightening than the glowering wrinkled one and its cur of a subordinate. _

_This thing has been nice to him so far, in that at least he hasn't yelled at him or hurt him on purpose, like his companion tried to do moments ago with a long steel pincer. Castiel hugs his tentacles close, hurt that the creatures who've captured him want to touch them – they're private, and it feels like a violation to have hands stroking them, touching him so intimately when he hasn't even been mated yet._

_He watches the thing play with the flat white things in front of him, scratching them with a stick and looking tired. He wonders what his intention was when he tried to touch him, he'd looked only curious, while the others had seemed afraid and disgusted in equal measure. _

_It's a thing like him but warm and small, with only two protrusions like big arms to walk around on. It should be hideous, but Castiel is struck by his resemblance to the thing, wondering if it's some bygone part of his own race. _

Dean sleeps in his quarters, restlessly and without much actual relaxation. In the morning he enters the lab to work with the creature again, eager to get some results to present to Zachariah, who wants Chuck back on the case as the most experienced lab coat aboard ship. Never mind that his experience came more from books and simulations than actual contact.

And it's not like they've seen anything like this before anyway.

Dean taps on the glass of the tank and the creature hesitantly stirs and comes to see who it is that's woken him. When he presumably recognises Dean he stays in front of the glass, swaying a little and waiting for his next move.

Dean proffers the fish he's brought down.

The creature follows the fish up behind the glass and surfaces to prod at it with his fingers. His face forms a moue of disgust.

"Not a fish fan?"

The creature seems to respond to the questioning tone, batting the fish away and scowling irritably.

"Well...what do you want then?" Dean asks, trying to forget that the creature probably can't understand the specifics of what he wants. The creature's fingers return to the fish, stroking it before he snatches it away and with a series of precise gestures jerks off the head and removes the spine, separating two fillets to hand back to Dean carefully, and dropping the discarded bones and skin into his other upturned hand.

Dean frowns, trying to work this out. Then he walks over to his desk, sets the butchered fish aside, wipes his hands and returns with some lumps of tuna from his lunch salad. He offers them to the thing in the tank, and the creature takes them gratefully, eating them quickly and then smiling slightly.

Dean smiles back.

"The creature from the black lagoon doesn't do raw fish." He mutters, then frowns. "We still have no idea what to call you, aside from Specimen 001 I mean." He says conversationally. He pauses, then figures that maybe the whole Tarzan-Jane bit could be useful here. So he points at himself and says "Dean".

The creature looks intent, but none the wiser.

"Dean." He says again, then points at the creature. It points back at him hesitantly.

"Dean." He repeats, voice fathoms deep and rough with disuse.

"Yes!" Dean yells, nearly startling it away again. He points at the creature and makes a questioning face. The thing suddenly looks very excited.

"Castiel."

Dean frowns.

"Castiel." It insists, pointing at itself. Then it extends its hand to him again, and Dean takes it, feeling the curious finger stroking his own.

"Hello Castiel."

_The creatures who captured him seem at least to be intelligent. Despite the boundaries of language he has been able to communicate with the nicer one, the 'Dean' creature who brings him cooked fish in the mornings and who hasn't tried to touch him anywhere but his hands as yet. _

_With only a little struggle Castiel is able to communicate with him – an extravagant shrug for 'I don't know', raising both hands questioningly for 'Why?' pointing and primitive mimes help to make specific questions and though conversation is impossible, Castiel cannot help but be intrigued by their progress, as indeed is Dean._

_He still wishes to be free, and fears that before too long the creatures will step up their attempts to fathom the nature of his body, but for now he is quietly content, as far as he can be at least, moderately comfortable and interested in what 'Dean' will do next. _

For a couple of weeks Zach seems content with letting Dean observe Castiel (a name which he is keeping to himself) and make notes on his behaviour. But soon he becomes impatient and decides that if Castiel cannot be coaxed from the tank voluntarily for more detailed examination, then there is only one solution.

They do it while Dean is ashore for the day.

He arrives back to find the boat surprisingly quiet, that is until he goes below deck and finds his way to the lab. Zachariah and Chuck are standing over the unconscious body of Castiel, laid out on a gurney and with most of his tentacles strapped down. They're talking excitedly and making notes in between running probes and swabs up under the still mass of Castiel's lower body.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dean grinds out, moving to drag Zach's hands away from Castiel's drugged body.

"We decided an in depth analysis was unlikely to occur if the creature was conscious." Zach shrugs off Dean's grip and takes up a set of large steel tongs. "And we have been able to discover a lot about the specimen in your absence, for example-" He uses the tongs to nudge aside some tentacles and grasp something beneath the protective layer, pulling it into view. "We appear to have discovered the means of reproduction."

It's quite possibly the most appalling thing Dean has ever seen, Zachariah holding the organ for his examination, tongs winking in the fluorescent lights as he turns them slightly to get a better view.

"Stop this, now." Dean demands, and Zach's pleased expression dissolves into supreme displeasure.

"I will do no such thing, we haven't yet begun to..." but whatever he was about to say is lost in the awful sound that comes from Castiel as the drugs begin to wear off. It's somewhere between a moan of pain and a growl with some sort of high pitched shriek woven through it, like three throats working at once to show their fear and anger.

Zachariah pitches away from the bound up creature, Chuck following as Dean darts forward to look Castiel in the eye.

"It's ok." He tries to soothe him but Castiel is awake and confused and hurt, so he isn't fully focusing on Dean. Dean watches his tentacles strain against their bindings as Castiel tries and fails to cover himself, he makes the sound again, only lower and more like a sob.

"Shhhhh..." Dean weaves his hand into Castiel's hair, stroking it as he slowly releases some of his tentacles, allowing Castiel to quickly cover the central organ that Zacharaiah had uncovered. Dean takes hold of the tongs, now protruding from a mass of shaking tentacles, and opens them as gently as possible, drawing them away from the creature and putting them to one side before unbinding the rest of his limbs and lifting him, carefully transporting the huddled body back to the tank and lowering it in.

Castiel retreats to the far corner, wrapping himself so small that Dean can barely see him in the dark.

He turns to Zachariah and Chuck, standing a safe distance away.

"From now on I think all tests should be conducted by me." He grinds out.

They don't argue, but they don't seem to like it.

_Castiel lies coiled within himself at the bottom of the tank. He feels both angry, intensely, murderously angry, but also frightened and vulnerable in the wake of the assault on his more intimate body parts. The tentacles range from being like second limbs on the outer circle, to becoming more sensitive the closer they are to the hidden organ itself, finer and more dextrous. And, those two creatures had tied them down and touched them, running their hands, covered in thin, tacky, fake skin, over his private areas, nerve endings sending confusing waves of pleasure and violation with every touch. And then the cold pressure of some kind of instrument on him, lifting the flesh for inspection, pinching it tightly while he was unable to fight them._

_Had Dean let them do it? Why? Why would they want to touch him in that way, to learn of him and his kind? The frustrating thing is that he would answer their questions if he understood them, but they treated him as an animal, mute and defenceless, without feeling or dignity. _

_He can still feel the cold touch of the instrument on him, and he curls tighter into himself. Hating everything and pining for his freedom._

Dean stops sketching the diagram of Castiel's anatomy, leaving much of it unfinished. As brief as the examination had been, he had enough to go on and he knows that it will be repeated, at length if he cannot record some of the detail.

It still makes him uncomfortable.

He looks down at the rendering, the upper body paid out in casual lines, the tentacles noted more as an impression than a detailed mass, and finally the reproductive part, nestled beneath the layers of coiled limbs, but in this case shown more at the fore. An organ similar to that of a human, but with a wider opening at its end, a tight pucker of flesh concealed partly beneath a fold of skin that gloves the thing in its entirety.

He surmises that the creature might well be hermaphroditic, if the opening can be accessed by another male of the species.

He lays his pens aside and puts his head in his hands.

He wonders how Castiel is, after his ordeal, and why the idea of drawing a diagram of his particulars to show to untold people makes him as uncomfortable as it does.

Because Castiel isn't an animal, he's a person and a hell of a lot more human than others he could name.

He puts the sketches aside and wanders back over to the tank, tapping the glass softly.

"Castiel?"

Something thick and black strikes the glass hard just beside his hand.

"Castiel, I'm sorry, they didn't tell me and...and you have no idea what I'm saying." He sighs, hand stroking over the glass. He steps up onto the ledge that runs around the tank and dips his hand into the water gingerly. Nothing happens for a long, tense moment.

He wriggles his fingers.

A tentacle wraps around his arm, pulling it into the water as Castiel rises from it, bringing them nose to nose. Castiel looks furious, his eyes almost black, lips drawn back and revealing his double row of teeth. He hisses, low and resounding.

Dean brings his other hand up to cup Castiel's face. He maintains eye contact, careful not to struggle.

"Castiel." He says, and tries to inject all the feeling he can into that one, shared, word.

Castiel withdraws his tentacle and covers his teeth, curling in on himself again. He makes a sad sound, like a purr mixed with a whimper and a soft cry.

"I know." Dean strokes his wet hair carefully. "Won't happen again."

Castiel looks at him mistrustfully.

Dean sighs, points at the door and cuts his arms in a sharp 'X' for barred entry. Then he returns to stroking Castiel's hair. "They're not getting back in." He murmurs. "Just Dean, ok?" he winces, realising that referring to himself in the third person is a little juvenile, even for this conversation.

Castiel lights up with understanding, a careful tendril protruding from the water and snaking amongst his fingers.

"Just Dean." He repeats, frowning a little, not looking entirely convinced.

"Just me." He insists. Then, leaning to one side, cautiously, he snags the probe Zachariah used. Castiel instantly snarls and backs away, eyes wide with fear, but Dean holds up a hand to still him, and then breaks the probe in half, right in front of him.

That at least, Castiel seems to understand.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Ahh ...why do you bring out the worst in me? Warnings – many warnings for the easily disturbed.**_

_Castiel is unable to stop himself from interfering with the world outside of his enclosure. At first he fears retribution but when none of the creatures seem to catch on to his actions, given that Dean is the only one who comes into the lab, and he is usually otherwise occupied, he finds himself going further in his attempts to learn about these things that have captured him._

_It starts with an accident._

_Dean had gone still and silent in his chair, and Castiel gradually realised that he was sleeping. But the smaller tank with the light in it, the one that Dean had been watching pictures in, continues to flicker in the dark. There are people on it, and after a while Castiel comes to the surface and realises that he can hear them talking, these tiny creatures so similar to Dean in appearance. _

_After about an hour of watching with mild interest he realises that this must be a kind of entertainment, that the pictures and noises are a story, albeit one he can't understand. It seems to consist of one man in a blue uniform and white cloth covering, walking up and down a hallway and talking to other people in similar clothing. There are a lot of other things in the background and after a while Castiel deduces from all the wounded people and implements similar to those Dean uses, that it's some kind of facility for the injured and sick. Though, as far as he can tell, not much seems to be being done to help them. _

_The people do however spend a lot of time in small rooms without windows, hiding from the other people and pressing their mouths together. _

_He doesn't know what to make of it._

_Over the next few evenings he watches from his tank, eventually becoming familiar with the faces of the people who feature regularly in this miniature world. He knows that the male creature with the long hair is most intimate with a female with yellow hair, but that she is bonded to another by some kind of treaty, judging from their secrecy and concern over discovery. _

_All the characters also begin their words with 'Doctor' which might be a form of greeting, although he has never heard Dean use it. _

_He realises that he can reach the shelves to one side of his enclosure if he reaches far enough, and plays with a small model in the shape of a ball, covered in lines and patches of green and blue. The green has things on it, but much of the blue is uniformly coloured, so he surmises that it shows his home, the place where these creatures have little dominion. There are also tiny renderings of fish that float when he puts them in the water, and he finds these to be amusing but ultimately purposeless. _

_There are other things around the tank that interest him. There are dry bundles of flat white sheets printed in strange squiggles that he can't read, but also thinner, shiny things that don't fall apart wetly in his grasp. These were hidden under a stack of other things, but eventually he managed to wriggle one free. They have pictures which he can look at, and more squiggles that he doesn't understand. The pictures are weird, but perhaps intended as some kind of medical reference, because they show anatomy fairly frankly. This is presumably what all females of Dean's species look like. _

_He finds them uniformly strange and almost violent in nature, these blunt pictures. He cannot imagine his own body being printed in such a way, it seems too intimate._

_But then perhaps Dean's people are less concerned with modesty. _

Dean begins to notice that there are always puddles on the floor beneath his bookshelves in the mornings. The things on them also seem to move around, often ending up closer to Castiel than they were when he left the previous evening.

It doesn't take a genius to work out what he's been doing. Especially after he finds several 'Busty Asian Beauties' fat with damp and crinkled in the space between tank and shelves. He plucks them off the floor and waves them at the glass to get Castiel's attention.

"This, is not cool man." He sighs, "You do not destroy another man's porn, not on this boat, not thousands of miles from the nearest replacement."

Castiel bobs to the surface and makes a curious cooing noise.

"aaaand you have no idea why this is so important, of course." Dean rubs a hand over his face. Castiel cocks his head to one side, then extends a tentacle, flicking the magazine with mild interest and then tapping Dean's hand, waiting for an explanation. Dean tries to pull back, but the limb wraps around his wrist and holds on.

"Look...it's not something that I can explain." He mutters. "You wouldn't...it doesn't matter, ok?"

Castiel splashes irritably. "Dean." He sighs, frowning in displeasure.

Dean shakes his head. "No."

Castiel sighs again and disappears. Dean confiscates the magazines and goes back to his work.

Zachariah's been pushing him to get some actual data on Castiel's biology, but he can't do that without either poking him about and victimising him, or cutting him up – neither of which he's inclined to do. Castiel is beautiful, intelligent and sensitive – not a dumb animal without sensibilities.

That's how he ends up trying to explain what he needs to Castiel himself. Because he needs the information and informed consent seems only appropriate.

It's also how he ends up revisiting porn, as a visual aid.

Castiel floats to the surface of the tank, looking down at the two objects that Dean is holding, the centre fold from one of his magazines and the now finished sketch of Castiel's reproductive system, or at least as much as he can remember of it. Castiel looks uneasy but nonplussed.

What Dean wants to get across is twofold – that he needs to know about this particular system of Castiel's, and that he understands that it's private, but it's necessary for him to ask to see it.

Porn admittedly probably wasn't a good place to start on that.

With some pointing and eventually with the aid of a brief clip of a woman visiting a gynaecologist, he manages to get his message across, or at least he assumes he does, from the suddenly horror stricken look on Castiel's face.

_Dean's meaning evades him for most of his pageantry, he shows pictures, and whilst Castiel understand what they are of, it does little to help him to see the end goal of this conversation. He watches the proceedings intently, trying to fathom it out, and eventually thinks he's grasped it._

_If it's true, then it terrifies him. Dean wants to examine him as the others had. He can't believe it to be true. _

_He tests out this hypothesis by raising a tentacle and miming interest in it, looking at it and turning it this way and that. Then pointing to Dean and repeating the childish mime. _

_Dean nods, not seeming particularly happy about his own point. _

_Castiel shakes his head violently. Dean makes a pleading noise._

"_Castiel...I need to know." He says, and he can read the distress in his voice, but it does little to rid him of his fear, and the memories of cold steel and rough touches. _

_He shakes his head again. He almost flinches when Dean touches the hand resting on the edge of the tank, but he holds it together. Dean's touch is purposefully gentle._

"_Cas." _

_He recognises the tone, making it his name, only strangely shortened. Dean's stroking fingers move to his arm, then to his chest, and though he feels cold dread in the pit of his body he can't bring himself to swat them away. Dean trails down the wet skin of his torso slowly, firmly, reaching the first edge of his outer line of tentacles. He does flinch this time, but only a little. Dean traces the line along his abdomen before reaching down, standing on the balls of his feet to reach into the tank, his fingers swirling through Castiel's tentacles as they curl and coil restlessly. _

_Castiel realises he has closed his eyes, a long breath coming in a shudder from his mouth. _

Castiel seems hypnotized into stillness either by shock or resignation, but Dean takes advantage of it to run his hands over the clenching, swaying mass of tentacles within his reach. They're silken to the touch, wet and smooth on the topside, roughened minutely with tiny suckers underneath. As he touches them they twist over his hands, seemingly without any volition from Castiel himself, shy tendrils stroke his palm and slide between his fingers, twining over his arm as it sinks lower in the water.

When he reaches the sensitized final layer he notices how much softer the protrusions are, more tactile and less resilient. As his fingers find the central organ nestled between and behind the final tentacles Castiel hisses softly, and the grip on his arm intensifies a little. Dean is prepared to draw back, but Castiel pulls his hand lower, bringing the foreign sensation of blood warm fingers close to the neglected place hidden beneath him.

_Castiel can't bring himself to open his eyes to the sight of Dean exploring him. The touch of his hot, strangely rough skinned hand on him is almost unbearably intense, and yet when Dean begins to pull away he snatches the pressure back, pressing into it with an eagerness that shames him. He has no idea what he wants, but less of Dean is definitely not it, he needs pressure and heat and touch, more now than he ever has before. It has never been like this, he has never wanted like this in all his life, and it's too much all at once._

_So good and so terrifying. Wonderful and primal and wrong and everything that his body screams for._

In his hand the organ twists, growing thicker and slightly longer, and reminding him with an unpleasant suddenness exactly what he is doing to Castiel, arousing a foreign creature out of selfish curiosity. A surprising quantity of fine secretion flows over his hand, thick enough to withstand the water and emanating from the slit at the tip of the thing, which fluctuates open and shut nervously with the pulse of blood through the thing.

Dean presses his thumb to the entrance and Castiel growls as it slides slowly into the organ. Dean instantly looks up as Castiel grips his arm hard. But he isn't struggling or hurt, in fact he doesn't think Castiel registers any discomfort at all.

His hands are fisted on the sides of the tank, his head bent forwards as another guttural sound scratches the back of his throat.

Castiel is clearly enjoying this.

Dean flushes as he realises this, feeling himself twitch where the rough fabric of his jeans presses his cock against his thigh. This should not be affecting him in the way that it is, and yet he can't make himself distant and observational. Not flushing hot and achingly stiff as he is.

His thumb slides further into the shuddering entrance and Castiel whines as layers of soft tendrils wrap over Dean's hand, rubbing his skin ardently and forming loops around and through his fingers, less and less innocently explorative and more in search of friction and tight heat.

Dean's arm aches from the angle and he's painfully hard, but he can't bring himself to move away, not with the rapturous look on Castiel's face as his limbs grope blindly at Dean's arm and his mouth produces such alien and yet universal sounds of ecstasy, the inner walls of his body squeezing and stroking with hundreds of tiny protrusions along his thumb and he thrusts just a little further, feeling Castiel's whole body jerk and then relax as he reaches the height of whatever process Dean has begun in him, and comes down from its final, torturous stages.

He slowly pulls his thumb from the relaxed cavity, feeling the tentacles give way as he extracts his hand from them and removes it from the tank, he reaches up to touch Castiel's face, flinching when he vanishes in a flurry of splashes and tentacles.

He's left with an aching erection, a hand covered in clear secretions and an indelible cold feeling that he's done Castiel a terrible wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**This is, hands down and bar none, the weirdest, creepiest thing I have ever written...I cannot ever go to a convention and risk seeing either of them in person now. **

Dean watches Castiel closely for a few days. Or rather, he watches the tank in which Castiel is hiding, sometimes lucky enough to catch a glimpse of him as he moves from end to end restlessly. Castiel does not surface for food, does not come to the side of the tank to watch Dean at work or to spy on Dr. Sexy over his shoulder, the way he used to.

In short, Castiel is avoiding him, which is difficult to do given his confines.

Dean plays himself at the avoidance game, suppressing the memory of what the inside of Castiel's body had felt like, the enraptured expression on his face and the sounds he had made. He denies the idea, when it surfaces, of what Castiel's soft tentacles, and the combing restless tongues that line the walls of his channel, would feel like against his own blood drunk skin. He tries not to wonder what Castiel thinks of him now. Perhaps he had once considered him a friend, Dean is unsure as to what he feels now, whether he sees him as a terrible animal, a predatory jailer or a traitor in the worst way possible.

He is reluctant to tackle the issue head on, but he cannot let Castiel skulk in his tank forever. There are things that are beyond his control in this instance, and he has to continue with his work.

But he shudders at doing so without Castiel's permission, and he cannot stand the idea of having hurt him. There is a growing section of his brain that tells him over and over that he should free the creature, set him back out into the sea before they reach their port and it becomes too late.

There's really only one way he's going to get a chance to make amends.

_Castiel feels the water stirring against his body, uncoiling himself tentatively to discover it's cause, he is at first alarmed by the sight of Dean's lower body, encased in some kind of black fabric._ _Then he is merely enraged. _

_As Dean continues to lower himself into his enclosure, Castiel thrashes his longest limbs menacingly. Dean has imprisoned him, held him here where the others could hurt him, and then taken his trust stealthily, touching him and treating him to an intense feeling he has no name for. Dean has broken his barriers and led him into confused territory. _

_In the few days since Dean had awakened what had once been a dormant organ, Castiel had been restless with the knowledge that his body was seemingly capable of feel in such ways. It was an appetite he had never experienced before, and he had no way of satisfying it alone._

_He'd combed his own hands through the sensitive tendrils, touching the organ that seemed constantly heavy with blood, swollen and tracing a steady stream of blood warm fluid into the surrounding water. Even when he succumbed to frustration and flicked one of his outer limbs inside of the straining orifice, filling it and stroking it's insides with the tip of his tentacle, he felt only a fraction of the physical ecstasy that he had previously encountered. None of the connection and warmth that Dean had engendered. _

_Wrapped in his tentacles, caressing his own back and throat and twisting through his waterlogged hair, he tried to simulate connection, the feeling of another body next to his as, within his cocoon of caressing limbs, he pleasured himself as Dean had done. _

_It still did not feel the same._

_This unnatural need, this craving and its accompanying blight of the distended, aching organ, he blamed solely on the creature that had brought it out in him. _

_Dean. _

_And it left him with the odd feeling of both hating the creature for what he had done, and wanting him back, so that he might continue with it, and take the ache of it away._

Dean feels the tentacle wrap around his ankle and barely has time to make as sound before he's dragged under the water. A fully pissed off Castiel throws him against the wall of the tank, holding him in place with a forest of snapping, weaving limbs whilst he stares him down with icy blue eyes, dark hair waved out by the churning water, shadow mapping over him.

Dean's terrified despite himself. He'd forgotten how big Castiel was when his limbs were fully stretched, how each one was a long, flexible muscle capable of crushing him to death in an instant. One coils around his chest as if that is his very intention, and Dean hisses out a stream of panicked bubbles, thrashing in its grip.

Castiel's tentacles lift him up, letting his head break the surface, just barely, before yanking him down so that he can crowd him again. Dean fights more in confusion than anything else, as Castiel doesn't seem about to hurt him. His hands and feet are abruptly restrained by Castiel's errant limbs, without much effort on his part as far as Dean can tell.

Castiel presses close, so Dean can feel the pressure of his body through the wet suit, lifting them both so that they break water and Dean can breathe freely.

"Cas..." he manages to splutter, heaving a lungful of air as his starving lungs scream at him not to talk. "What...?"

_Dean's trying to speak to him, but he doesn't want words right now, especially becae he won't understand them. He wants silence, and time to do what he wants. He snakes a tentacle up to Dean's mouth, covering it neatly, discovering quite by accident that Dean's lips feel good against his flesh. He presses their bodies closer, easing the throbbing organ beneath him with one hand as the tentacle explores Dean's mouth. _

_It's hot and smooth walled and damp inside, a pleasant sensation of tight heat which gratifies his senses, so used to the cold water and his own tepid touch. Dean's eyes are wide, watching him without comprehension, but he doesn't fight the smooth slide of flesh into his mouth, the exploratory brushes of the tip against the soft sides of his cheeks and the harder palate. Castiel shudders a little as Dean sucks saliva and swallows, pulling against the tentacle and tightening his mouth around it unintentionally. _

_He brushes another tentacle against his lips, toying with the soft flesh and waiting for Dean to open his mouth for him. Dean meets his eye and, seemingly aware of his purpose at last, opens his mouth slowly, allowing Castiel to press into him with a more sensitive tendril, moaning as Dean's tongue twirls with it, slick and hot and strong. _

Dean fits the second tentacle into his mouth, sucking gently at it and turning his tongue along its length. Castiel makes a small sound, head falling back in pleasure. He's still catching up to where they are, Castiel having thrown him against the side of the tank in apparent rage, and has now turned to filling his mouth with wet, curious tentacles. More of the limbs encircle his own, others are pulling and pushing at the centre of his body.

As Castiel fetches up against him again, body plastering to his as his hand strokes Dean's cheek and cups his jaw, Dean feels something harder and more insistent than a tendril prod him in the stomach. He pulls his mouth off of the tentacles, ignoring Castiel's wounded mewl, and feeling the hard thing at the centre of the whirling tentacles poke him again, more forcefully, rubbing frustratedly against the fabric of his wet suit.

A glance down has him arrested on the sight of Castiel's genitalia, swollen to a degree that looks painful even to him, knowing as little as he does of Castiel's biology. It pulses a steady stream of lubricating fluid against his stomach, thick and slip sliding between them. Dean can see he's already covered with it, and his cock, already slightly plumped from the feel of Castiel in his mouth, begins to ache at the sight of his own lower body, encased as it is in black neoprene and slick with what amounts to Castiel's copious pre-come.

He touches the thick protrusion and Castiel makes a sound like Dean's killing him, rubbing his face into the side of Dean's neck wantonly as more tendrils snake up to fill his mouth. Dean grabs the back of the creatures neck, kissing Castiel hard and almost moaning himself as Cas picks up on what Dean wants and starts to move his mouth against him. Tentacles sneak up to brush against their joined lips, and Dean feels one of the fragile inner protrusions intrude on his mouth, their tongues sliding around it, teasing it until Castiel breaks off to moan hoarsely and press more tentacle between their lips.

Castiel continues to buck rhythmically against Dean's body, and their kiss turns more to sucking every proffered limb and tasting the smears of thick salty fluid pressed on him by Castiel's weaving strands. Castiel's eyes are closed and he whimpers with growing dissatisfaction, finally shifting in frustration before stiffening and moaning with such intensity that Dean, uncertain as to where they're going with this, glances down at Castiel's groin.

The source of the moan is clear and Dean chokes on his own shuddering groan as his eyes fix on the thick tentacle filling the opening in Castiel's body, thrusting through the taut circle of puffed flesh and dripping more secretion as it pulls out a little way. Castiel's teeth press the flesh of his lower lip white, tentacles fanning at Dean's chin impatiently for attention, but when Dean's fingers skate over the surface of his stuffed organ, Castiel makes an inhumanly deep cry of pleasure and his body jerks without his control.

_He's almost where he needs to be, he can feel heat, delicious foreign heat, flowering inside of him, pulses of thick fluid sliding out over the cool tentacle he has within himself. But he needs more, he wants Dean's hand on him, in him as it was before. He wraps a limb, trembling and awkward as they are becoming, around Dean's wrist and pulls his hand around to the opening in him, removing the tentacle with a long shudder, watching it disgorge itself from the hole along with another flow of too hot liquid. _

"_Dean." The only word he knows, the only way he can make him understand as he insistently pushes Dean's hands towards where he is so achingly empty. "Dean." And it comes out a long whine, a hitching, desperate sound, and when Dean moves his hand away he feels like he's going to die, because if Dean won't touch him, he'll never feel that good again, never be able to stop the throbbing in the pit of his body. _

_He's almost consigned himself to it, when he sees Dean pulling at the cloth that covers his body, tugging down a fastening and showing the long line of his exposed underbelly. Castiel strokes the available flesh curiously, lighting on something almost the same as his own genitalia, but utterly different, hot and thick and solid, without an opening at its head to allow a tendril inside. He pats at it curiously and Dean shudders and moans "fuck...yes..." before he tugs a tentacle towards his lips and sucks it hard without being coaxed._

_Castiel's eyes close of their own accord and he continues to pet the odd part of Dean's body that makes him react with such obvious pleasure, stopping only when Dean's hand pulls his limbs away, taking hold of his genitals himself and then tugging at the throbbing organ that Castiel can feel aching all the way up his spine. _

"_Trust me." He mutters, and Castiel doesn't understand the words, only the feeling of Dean's body pushing inside of the aching hole he's been trying to fill for himself for days. Then all he knows is heat and the feeling of being full and stretched, the shaft tight and solid over Dean's own._

Dean barely contains a shuddering whimper as he bottoms out in Castiel's channel. The surrounding flesh is tight and writhes with a kind of strength he's never felt before, greedily pulling at him, the tiny lapping tongues along its walls drawing firmly along his length.

He wasn't built to withstand this kind of sensation.

Castiel is far from pliant, limbs raking at Dean's back in a flurry, mouth sucking at his neck, tentacles pushing into his mouth and venturing further until he has to open his throat to them or choke. When the searching limbs find a way into his waterlogged wet suit, he knows it's only a matter of moments before they discover other places on him, but, hard up against Castiel's body, filling him and being stroked by him internally, sucked and swallowed by his shaft, he can't form thought enough to care.

Soon Castiel is mostly supporting him, Dean having gone boneless with over stimulation, unable to think of anything except holding off on his climax, staving off the suffocating pleasure. When he feels pressure between the globs of his ass he can barely muster a movement, jerking a little in the grip of Castiel's tentacles.

With the first press inwards he presses his face to the wet curve of Castiel's neck, moaning softly in discomfort and then groaning as Castiel's efforts to swallow his dick redouble, the rippling muscle milking him greedily. He sucks the first tentacle to find his lips again, giving himself over to the feeling of being filled, Castiel's limbs wrapped around every inch of him, a smooth, wet, tentacle in his mouth and one already wriggling inside of him, finding the nub of his prostate and nudging it curiously. When he goes rigid from the pressure, another flick follows and Dean dissolves into helpless moans as his orgasm isn't so much reached as forced on him by Castiel's overzealous stuffing of his mouth and ass.

_Castiel feels Dean jerk and shake, a splash of heat inside of him presumably the signal of his release. He feels Dean's organ soften inside of him, and sends a soft tendril in beside it to stroke the tender protrusion, earning a tired moan from Dean._

_He's so close, so unbearably close, and with hot release filling him, Dean's mouth wrapped around parts of him and others thrust up into his hot, tight body, so strangely dry and warm inside, he falls apart in a series of sudden jerks, wetness flooding from his central organ as well as the over stimulated tentacles, filling Dean's mouth with liquid and pumping him full where they are joined beneath and behind him._

_He removes his tendrils slowly, mindful of Dean's wince, withdrawing them and bringing their blood warmed tips close to his own body._

_In the sudden calm that follows, the water they've disturbed slaps against Dean's bared back, wetting his already soaked hair and splashing onto Castiel. Dean looks startled, his lips reddened by the tentacles he's pressed there, chin dripping the salt smear of his release. _

_Castiel isn't angry anymore, not in the face of everything Dean has given him, of everything he has let him do. He runs his hand over Dean's hair, cupping his chin and stroking his swollen lips._

"_Dean." _

_Dean holds his torso close to his own chest, hand reaching up to cover Castiel's fingers with his own._

"_Cas." He answers. They float in the tank, suspended in the water as it slowly settles and stops churning._


	4. Chapter 4

To say that Dean is shell shocked is an understatement.

He's mostly naked, wreathed in a previously unknown and now quite sated creature, feeling water lap various secretions from all over his body. He'd entered the tank trying to work out why Castiel was angry with him, had felt the creatures rage and then...he's kind of blanking on where it all got turned around, when Castiel decided it would be an awesome idea to just fill him full of tentacles and pump him full of...

Shell shocked. Understatement.

He flaps inelegantly to the side of the tank and climbs out, waving a hand at Castiel in response to his soft coo of distress. He's sore, incredibly sore, and fumbling in a kind of post-orgasm numbness. Once out of the water he seizes a towel, kicks off the unsalvageably slicked wetsuit and starts scrubbing briskly at his cold skin, ruffling his soaked hair.

"We, are in serious trouble." Are the first words he thinks to say, and Castiel just watches him, curiosity and blatant desire on his face as he looks over Dean's naked body.

Which, whilst gratifying, is a little weird.

"Castiel"

Blue eyes finally reach his.

"Dean." In a tone that, whist concerned, also seems to say _And round two will be starting?...now please._

The talk is not going to go well if that is the extent of their communicative abilities.

Dean approaches the tank and reaches to take Castiel's hand, smoothing the wet skin with his own fingers.

"We really have to get you out of here." He whispers.

Castiel understands the grave tone.

"Yes" he says, startling Dean with the only other word he's managed to pick up.

"Yes, huh?" He sighs. "Guess I'm planning this thing then."

It's really something he's been thinking for a while, beneath the certainty that Zachariah would go through him to get to Castiel if needs be. Dean knew that getting the information that the other man wanted would only be the beginning, that Castiel would not be released once documented, but kept in his tank, or one like it, to be displayed and toured through every university, museum, sea world and freak show that would pay for the pleasure of having him.

Now, with the feel of Castiel's wet skin still on his own, Dean couldn't pretend that Castiel was anything other than a person. A sentient, intelligent being probably more sensitive than some of the humans involved in his capture.

And one who Dean was fast realising he had an attachment to, far greater than what he would feel for a captured dolphin.

So his carefully constructed plan is – to wait until everyone's asleep, then lift Castiel from his tank, take him up on deck and fling him over the side.

Its brilliance is in its simplicity.

Dean is not the best scientist, sure he can sketch and run labs and cut things open when it's required of him, but he lacks the finesse, the bookish ways of someone who have hunch over a centrifuge and scrape at trays of biological matter without ever once considering that 1.) it had originally been a living thing with thoughts and feelings and all that Sam-type-bullshit, and 2.)that there might be something else out there.

Well, he'd found that 'something else' and after having bedded (read – tanked) it he was going to do the decent thing and relinquish the octopus-man back unto natures tender mercies.

That was just the type of guy he was.

_Castiel understood little of Dean's speech, but the salient points, he was fairly certain, ran thusly._

_He was going to release Castiel_

_That he was going to do so very soon_

_That he had no idea what to make of their union._

_On this at least, they were both in agreement. What had transpired, whilst intensely pleasurable, was disturbing in both its interspecies elements and the barbaric nature of their joining. He knew Dean felt...abstractly culpable, for being taken in such a way, scourged in a rush of tentacles and held limply as Castiel made use of his various deep and interesting orifices..._

_Which brought him to the fourth point,_

_That he desperately didn't want Castiel to leave._

_Castiel could read it in his body language, his lingering looks and gentle touches as Dean held his fingers or tendrils as he tried to explain what was going to happen._

_Castiel didn't want to leave either._

_He was tired of the tank, of the threat of the other creatures like Dean and their designs on his body, but he was reluctant to leave a mate, even a biologically unviable one like Dean. For, despite being both of a different species and (to Castiel's primary reckoning at least) male, Dean had proven himself a loyal and affectionate partner, and readily able to meet Castiel's most urgent of needs now that he was actively able to copulate. _

_Putting aside that, he also enjoyed the way Dean looked at him, and spoke to him sometimes as though he'd forgotten that Castiel understood only two words of his language. He spoke to him as an equal, and looked on him as something...irreplaceable._

_Castiel liked that feeling. _

_He couldn't really explain this feeling to Dean, not having the vocabulary and not being fully sure of his intentions himself. He couldn't take Dean with him back to the reef where they'd found him. For one thing Dean didn't have the physiology to survive there, and for another he might not want to stay with him, Dean's people, as evidenced by the entertainment he chose to immerse himself in, changed partners with eerie disinterest, never committing to one mate for longer than it took to complete the act of fornication. Sometimes not even as long as that, judging by the antics of the tiny renditions of people on the box that Dean watched._

_He has only a few ways of showing his affection, and he uses them, touching Dean whenever he's close enough and savouring the warmth of his skin, the softness of his dry hair. He learnt enough from their encounter to know that the thing between Dean's legs is essential for mating and responds favourably to stimulation, so he tries to reach it with his longer tentacles, pressing through Dean's garments and rubbing as best he can while Dean's hands grasp the tentacle, alternately pulling it away and pressing it closer._

_It's plain to Castiel that Dean does not know what he wants either. _

Castiel touches him all the time, and Dean finds it hard to think of the other man not being there. He'd miss the trail of a cool tentacle on the back of his neck, the winding pressure of another as it explores his clothed groin determinedly. As emasculating as having sex with Castiel had been, he feels an eagerness to repeat the experience. It was a sensation he knew he' never be able to duplicate with another human, and the fact that it had been Castiel, somehow beautiful despite being so strange...he finds himself touching Castiel back as much as he can.

Yet he was still prepared to bail him over the side of the ship and to freedom.

There was no getting around the impossibility of them ever having anything as girly and permanent as a future.

They'd had sex. (Epic, mentally scarring, ruined-for-all-others sex) He liked Castiel a lot, and clearly the creature felt affection for him too. But there was a whole pile of little mermaid sourced bullshit that said they'd never get away with coexisting.

That was just how it was going to be.


	5. Chapter 5

_A brief pimp for this amazing picture done by ToGainYourTrust on Deviant art (can't remember the name of the reviewer off hand so, sorry) but it is seriously spot on to what I've been trying to describe, and the tentacles are so beautifully rendered, so thanks for that, and everyone should check it out._ _.com/art/Just-Dean-203519448 Still waiting on X-rated tentacle Cas/Dean...ahh a mentally disturbed girl can dream _

_And another one by a friend of mine .com/?qh=§ion;=&q=octopus+castiel#/d3d9lcj _

Dean got as far as hauling Castiel out of the tank and depositing the wet torso and wriggling tentacle mass of him onto the floor of the lab before things started to go awry.

For one thing, Castiel was, despite his weightless ethereal grace, pretty damn heavy. For another, he didn't seem to want to let go of Dean, so when he lowered Castiel to the floor, a dozen perfidious limbs snaked over him, curling and pulling to keep Dean close by.

"Not helping Cas." He plucked them from his shoulders and waist, straining against their determined muscular grip. Castiel just plants more limbs on him, wrapping his wrists and forearms, waist and neck, pulling down towards where Castiel is grounded, holding himself up awkwardly with his palms flat on the floor. Sneaky cold tendrils make their way under Dean's shirt, wriggling under the waistband of his pants to cradle the roundness of his buttocks and snake around his thighs beneath the cloth.

Dean chokes off a tight groan as one slender frond brushes his cock, thin protrusion wrapping slowly around the limp organ curiously as Castiel eyes the clothed expanse of Dean's body with the same curiosity, wondering at how this part of Dean is so far small and vulnerable, where before it was like his own organ, blood filled and hard.

_Castiel lets the tip of the tentacle wriggle into the slit at the top of the thing, navigating by touch beneath Dean's clothes as the other tentacles hold him still. When the very end of the tendril squirms against the blunt head of the organ, searching for a small version of his own channel, Dean cries out loudly and drops into the hold of his limbs, no longer trying to push them off but shaking in their embrace. _

"_Cas..." the tiny broken sound is his name, he's sure. He doesn't want to leave, how can he communicate that if not by holding on to what is his. _

"_Cas...don't..." Dean shakes his head wilfully, his eyes squeezing shut as waves of cautious limbs trail over his skin, touching, seeking out the warm spaces on him. Castiel allows his central folds of tentacles to draw back, revealing the heavy organ that rests on them, easily spotted now that he's on the dry floor and not suspended in the tank. The sight of it and the weaving, wavering tentacles that beckon towards it, seem to shock Dean out of his obedient trance. Dean struggles with him and Castiel reluctantly withdraws his hold on him, curling his long, elegant limbs back onto himself, shielding himself from Dean's possible anger. _

Dean shudders at the loss of Castiel's touch, looking up at Castiel as the other man curls his tentacle around himself, looking at him uncertainly. Rejection is presumably not something that Castiel's experiences with his own race have prepared him for. Dean slides a little closer and wraps his arms around Castiel and the mass of shivering tentacles. Castiel flinches, then identifies the gesture as affectionate. He lets out a soft mewling sound, plaintive and hurt.

"You don't want to go, do you?" Dean murmurs. Castiel wraps a handful of limbs around Dean's body and nuzzles closer to his warmth, soaking in it greedily. "They'll hurt you if you stay." Dean says, mostly to himself.

Castiel looks at him, blue eyes wide with distress.

Dean picks him up again, despite Castiel's renewed struggles and increasingly upsetting sounds of discontent.

"I'm so sorry Cas." Dean claps a hand across Castiel's mouth, ignoring the tentacles that tug at it, trying to free himself to plead wordlessly. Dean stumbles up on deck with the heavy creature in his arms, looking out on the utter dark of the sea and sky, merging without a single light anywhere. The moon is dark and the water is calm, he half lifts, half drags Castiel to the side, stumbling on the long tentacles that slip from his grasp and try to tangle his legs and Castiel lengthens his body, trying to slip from his arms.

They bump into the side rail and Castiel looks down at the black water, struggling with all his strength against Dean, but he's out of his element, and Dean holds the upper hand. Dean removes his hand from Castiel's mouth, and the creature makes a heart breaking sound, relentlessly hate filled and despairing. His tentacles wrench at Dean's body, trying to hold on even as Dean lifts him over the side.

Dean pauses, holding Castiel out over the water, kissing him quickly on the mouth and feeling Castiel's threnody continue against his lips, coiling down his throat and filling his chest, his stomach.

"Dean!" Zachariah's shout is accompanied by the sudden flare of green light on deck, the flare itself hanging over them like a sickly star. The report of the cartridge sound a moment later, a heart deep boom of sound.

Chuck sprints towards them from below deck, flare gun still in hand.

Dean seizes his chance. Dropping Castiel into the water.

Castiel seizes his chance, dragging Dean along with him.


	6. Chapter 6

It's terrifying, being hauled along in Castiel's arms as his lower body thrashes perpetually at the water, driving them forwards in long movements. Salt water, icy cold and dark, lapping over their heads so often that Dean can barely draw breath. Behind them the sounds of the waves on the hull of the ship and the harsh cries of the men on deck, fade out, until only the crashing waves remain. Castiel swims like a thing possessed, dragging Dean with him and awkwardly trying to compensate for the other man's weight.

Dean can't get the breath together to scream, to yell at Castiel to take him back. He can't move his frozen limbs enough to swipe at him, and the bruising force of their progress through the water, plus Castiel's grip on him, wrings the strength out of Dean's body. Like a limp rag he's carried along, mind barely keeping up with Castiel's motions.

_He strikes cleanly through the water, Dean secured in his arms but heavy, heavier than he can manage for any great distance. He thinks back to the vessel of his captors whenever he feels himself begin to slow. To the terrifying boom of their ordinance and it's resultant glowing green light. Dean had been within its range, a potential victim for the wrath of those who had tied Castiel down and hurt him. _

_He's saved Dean's life so far tonight, he must not let him drown now. _

_The man's body goes limp in his arms after a while, and Castiel is dimly aware that he's been knocked unconscious, whether from shock or the force of the water Castiel has no idea. The weather has picked up since they left his prison, and the water ripples with dangerous tension, the air thick with electricity and the promise of violence._

_Castiel shifts Dean in his arms, holding him tightly as he thrusts his own head beneath the waves, calling out with his true voice, the triplicate call that carries through the water so easily. _

_He calls for his family._

Dean wakes on something reassuringly flat and solid.

It's a couple of second before he tries to roll over, and then his palm strikes wet sand and he feels a flicker of panic. This roars into full blown fear when he finds he can't open his eyes because of the salt crust that clots his eyelashes, that he's tasting iodine in his mouth and feeling as if he's just been tossed around in a whirlwind full of sand and rubble.

He tries to speak, then coughs.

"Cas?" he tries, remembering at last what had happened to him. "Castiel?"

He finally manages to unseal his eyes properly, blinking until his vision clears.

A blond man looks down at him hawkishly, the skin on his stocky torso bathed bronze with sun and tapering into...

Dean really shouldn't be surprised by the heap of damp, light brown tentacles, but he is.

"Castiel." Says the unfamiliar man, and that's when Dean notices Castiel on the shore, hunkered on the sand, the pale grit beading his tentacles minutely, his skin dry and his hair swept up by the cutting sea wind. The blond man pulls Dean up into a sitting position, his wet jeans heavy and tacky on his skin.

"Good you see you awake." He says, waving Castiel closer with a series of low pitched sounds like whale noise mixed with purring.

Dean feels like setting up a ticket reel so that any other weird shit that wants to surprise him can go ahead and take a number. He's maxed out on so many levels.

"You talk." He croaks.

"Better than you do." He points out. Rough hands check his pulse and the brown tentacles shift impatiently. "You'll live." He declares. "Though Castiel succeeded in half drowning you before he reached us."

"Gabriel?" Castiel squirms up the sand to rest next to the man, looking both abashed and worried.

The man, Gabriel, makes some more sounds and Castiel looks at Dean again, now less concerned and just upset. Tentacles wrap around Dean's legs as Castiel touches him anxiously with his hands, as if assuring himself that no damage was done.

Gabriel watches with an odd expression on his face, then snaps off a few barks of his and Castiel's own language. Castiel nods shakily, cooing in protest when Gabriel practically snarls at him and gestures angrily at Dean.

"You mated with my brother?" he demands.

Dean so isn't up to dealing with this.

"You ensnare my kin and then violate..." Castiel, who presumably grasps enough of this to argue his point, makes a series of soft cries.

Dean assumes it's something along the lines of 'I came on to him.' Because Gabriel visibly unclenches and looks halfway friendly again.

"You will explain later." He glowers at Dean.

"After some water." Dean croaks. "How are you talking, anyway?"

"I learned." Gabriel replies succinctly and somewhat uselessly.

Dean figures there's a bit more to it than that.

_Castiel watches Dean converse with his brother and feels a stab of unwelcome envy. Gabriel after all had learnt the language of Dean's people during his exile from the reef. He had been the first to respond to Castiel's call, though he had felt Balthazar's presence nearby. Gabriel confirmed what Castiel had feared – no other members of their extended family were going to help him to save a human. Humans were the low ebb of evolution as far as the others were concerned, and Castiel knew that they would turn on him for mating one._

_They had on Gabriel. _

_He nudges his brother at that thought, slipping into his own language, gone unused in all his time in capture._

"_Where is Kali?" he asks, and Gabriel's already serious face turns stony and incommunicative. _

"_Gone." He says shortly. _

"_Brother, I'm so sorry...how did she..."_

"_Not dead Castiel." Gabriel says tiredly. "Just gone."_

_Dean looks between the two of them cautiously, as if thinking he is the object of their discussion. Castiel rests several of his fronds on Gabriel's own in comfort. _

"_She knows nothing of what she does." Castiel soothes, knowing that for Kali, an Indian woman Gabriel had met on the shores of her land, far from home, and fallen in helpless love with, Gabriel had sacrificed everything. The family would not take him back now, would not even speak his name. He was to be outcast for the rest of his days, alone and homeless. At sea._

"_She knew." Gabriel weaves his tentacles close with those of his brother. "She was never kind." He shakes his head. "I never wanted kindness."_

_Castiel, for the little he knew of Gabriel and Kali, could see the point. Gabriel had been drawn to Kali's heat and fury, as vicious as any of their own kind and passionate with it. _

"_I will not leave you." Castiel promises, for now, they are both without the family, and he cannot afford to lose this last bastion of home. _

"_What of him?" Gabriel says, and Castiel's tentacles braid themselves possessively around Dean's wrist, the others still anchored to Gabriel. _

"_I want him to stay...but I don't know how much he would wish it...if it would even be possible."_

_Gabriel frowns._

Dean honestly has no idea what is going on. But for long minutes Gabriel and Castiel have been hissing and moaning at each other in conversation. Castiel is holding onto Gabriel, and now onto Dean's own wrist, and he has the feeling that whatever is going on involves him, at least peripherally.

When Gabriel frowns and turns to him he expects the worst.

"Do you want my brother?" The man asks.

"What?" Dean's voice breaks in his dry throat.

"Do you stake a claim on him, do you wish to have him attend you as a mate...do you will him to maintain you?"

_To love honour and obey, till death do you part, amen._

"I love him." Dean says quietly, feeling Castiel's uncertain touch on his skin and stroking the tentacles reassuringly with his hand.

"That is not what I asked you." Gabriel points out.

"Yes, I...it's not like I have family waiting for me...I'd like to stay with him." Dean says haltingly, and in that moment it's true. There's Sam, but Sam has his own life, he doesn't need his older brother anymore. "I want to tell someone though...I need to let my brother know that I'm not dead."

"Impossible." Gabriel snarls. "It would lead them to us."

"Who?"

"Anyone!" Gabriel says exasperatedly. "They would find us and take Castiel and me into captivity, you know this to be true."

"He'll try to find me, I know he will." Dean points out, because until someone could produce a body, Sam would never believe him to be dead.

Gabriel considers this.

"You may send word. But indirectly...I can show you a way." Gabriel says, and Dean is too exhausted to argue. Instead he hauls Castiel, still wavering on the edge of the conversation, into his lap, feeling his tentacles squirm against the wet denim. Dean rakes his hands up Castiel's back, stroking them through his now dry hair. Ignoring Gabriel completely he kisses Castiel on the mouth, tasting of salt and prickling with sand. Castiel makes a small, gleeful sound against his lips, arms and tentacles ensnaring them both in an excited tangle.

_Gabriel watches the lovers, newly secure in the knowledge of the other's devotion. His own heart warmed but broken. _

_After long minutes of silence on his part, Gabriel clears his throat and addresses Castiel. _

"_We'll have to take him somewhere suited for his physiology." He says. At Castiel's puzzled expression Gabriel relents, it may have one been his place, but with Kali gone..._

"_I have somewhere in mind." Gabriel says. "Help me with him."_

_As Castiel takes Dean's arm and urges him back towards the water, the human's face takes on a worried expression._

_Gabriel addresses him to ally his fears._

"We're taking you somewhere more comfortable, somewhere better for you, trust me."

"Where?" Dean grimaces.

"A place I used to share." Gabriel nudges Dean towards the waves. "Castiel is not the first to fall for one of your kind."

Between them they urge Dean to the water, and the man gives himself over to their directions, Allowing himself to be borne out into the sea again.


	7. Chapter 7

_Ok, so I'm going home for about three weeks and doing a lot of work whilst I'm there – upshot – probably won't be updating for a while, but I'll be thinking of plot ideas so I'll be posting bunches after that._

_I would give a warning about the content of this chapter, but that would give away the ending – so...if you don't like it I'm sorry, but I'm thinking of the surprise element. _

This place of Gabriel's turns out to be a small concrete bunker on an island no more than a sandbar. Castiel and Gabriel drag him up the sand and Dean struggles to his feet, looking up at the building, a one story room almost buried in sand.

"It was once a shelter for my mate." Gabriel says quietly. "There is drinking water, food, comfort...enough to sustain a human. Now, you may take Castiel inside, I have things to do." Gabriel twists, tentacles pushing into the wet sand, sliding back into the water.

"Wait...Gabriel." Dean shivers at the freezing wind, a storm coming in across the sea. His clothes are wet through and he's being left here on a tiny speck of land with a minute shelter and no assurance that he will ever see another human again. But the question he chooses to ask is, "Can you come back...soon. I'd like to be able to speak to Cas at some point...maybe you could teach him?"

Gabriel muses for a second.

"That would be prudent." He says. "You may use the communications equipment inside to contact anyone you choose." He offers, grudgingly. "But only once, and do not state our location."

"I don't even know where we are." Dean points out, but Gabriel is already bobbing away in the water.

Dean crouches next to Castiel on the sand, wrapping an arm around his torso and standing, holding Castiel awkwardly in his arms as tentacles wind around his lower body, trying to find purchase.

"Home sweet home then." Dean mutters, teeth chattering.

Castiel mewls softly against his neck, arms tightly crossed, clearly the cold air wasn't agreeing with him either.

Dean opens the door, wedging it back through the sand, and carries Castiel across the threshold into the darkened bunker. The floor under his boots is a little gritty from windswept sand, and the air is a little stale. But there's a kind of cot against the far wall. A shelf of books held up with round stones and a cupboard left half open, revealing canned goods and blankets. It's like a nuclear shelter, the only signs that it was recently occupied by a woman are the red glass candle holders that dot the ledges on the wall.

Castiel squirms to be let down, peering curiously into the dark. Dean sets him on the bed and closes the door before pulling off his wet and sandy clothes, laying them over the chairs of a small table to dry.

The communications equipment is an antiquated radio station, but he knows the frequency he uses to contact Sam from the boat, so he brings the thing laboriously back to life and into a hiss of static sends the message –

"Sam? I'm ok, and I'll get a letter or something to you soon."

His words are followed by an empty hiss as he sits, shivering in his undershirt, on the seat in front of the radio.

Maybe Sam will never even get the message.

Castiel makes a mournful, concerned sound and Dean half turns to look at him.

"S'ok Cas...I'm coming." He gets up reluctantly and goes through the cupboards looking for spare shirts or bedding.

He snags blankets from the cupboard and cocoons himself in them on the bed, coming to sit beside Castiel's squirming, inky form. As Dean rustles the cloth exhaustedly and lies down, tentacles snake under the blankets, seeking warmth and tracing ice cold flesh over his shivering stomach and thighs. Dean pulls Castiel bodily into his arms, rolling onto his side and covering them both in blankets. Castiel makes an odd little noise at the roughness of the fabric on his lover body, so alien a feeling, suffixing his limbs instead to Dean's bare skin, curling and uncurling them idly. Dean falls asleep to the odd sensation of lightly flicking, shifting, tentacles on his body and Castiel's head nudging at his collar bone.

_Castiel listens to Dean's breathing deepen and slow. Being on dry land is an odd feeling, but not unpleasant, without the water around him his flesh is not as slippery, it sticks slightly to Dean's own skin, tactile and smooth. Underneath him his mates body moves with each breath, warmth radiating from it and filling his curling limbs, his cold blooded torso. He lays his head on Dean's chest and hears his heart thudding like the wash of waves outside._

_He's free of his prison, at last._

_And Dean is staying with him. It occurs to him, on the edge of sleep, that he should ask Gabriel for tutelage in Dean's language, so that they might converse more easily, or at all, as their mimes can hardly be called conversation._

_He wonders what will come of Dean's separation from his own family. Dean has mentioned the 'Sam' to him, and also a 'Sammy' which might be a smaller version, a derivative of the original family unit. Castiel does not know how human clans are structured. But Dean must miss them, just as Castiel already misses Gabriel after being so long gone from his own unit. _

_An odd, liquid stirring upsets his lower limbs, making them curl inwards and clench involuntarily. He shudders at the odd feeling, the quickening of his system. _

_Castiel grumbles and purrs low in his throat, stroking without conscious thought at the small fronds that are already sprouting the buds that will become shiny black pods. _

_Gabriel has sensed it, he knows. Castiel examines the buds by touch, wondering how Dean will react to the idea that he can essentially produce his offspring at will - as soon as he is bonded to a mate and secure in a safe environment. _

_Their clan may be a small one now._

_But it's growing. _


	8. Chapter 8

_A new chapter for you, sorry it took so long, but I've had work to do, and I hit some writers block. So basically, a lot of time passes between the last chapter, and most of this one – about a month. Because I couldn't approach it any other way. It's also, largely ridiculous, because this sort of thing is hard to take seriously._

Sam sits up in bed in the middle of the night and glances at the slip of paper on his desk that still holds the strange broadcast his supposedly dead brother had sent him. What was he supposed to make of the fact that Dean was 'ok'? That he wasn't dead for one, but not a whole lot else. Sam had called the offices of Dean's boss, Zachariah, now that the ship was itself back in port. But the man could not be reached.

A whole lot of nothing was building up in the 'leads' department in other words. Sam had had enough experience of Dean pulling this shit before of course. He'd run off to Barbados for two weeks in spring break and possibly gotten married to a local girl whose name he couldn't pronounce. He'd bought the impala on a whim, disappeared off to the Middle East for a year and returned with a dubious degree in marine biology.

Dean was, for all his solidly American rock music and apple pie – an enormous flake. 

And Sam had put up with it, he'd picked Dean up from train stations and airports, looked up the intricacies of divorce law and applied antiseptic to the inadvisable tattoo Dean had acquired in Transylvania. (Protection symbols, in Sam's humble opinion, should not ooze pus) Not to mention picking up STI medication, finding him a job with Zachariah and lying flagrantly to the inland revenue people.

Sam was a fucking awesome little brother, and he didn't begrudge Dean his delayed wild adolescence.

He was tired however, of hearing about it afterwards and just had the feeling that, whatever his brother had done now, wasn't going to surprise him.

There was after all, a limit on how much trouble a man could get up to in the middle of the ocean.

Sam hoped.

He picked up the TV remote and zapped the television out of stillness and into action. If he couldn't sleep he could at least watch a little informational television. He skipped over a documentary on seals (seen it) one on the intricacies of pre-biblical religion (seen it) and landed on...Zachariah, the great balding asshole himself.

"...discovery will drastically alter all that we currently know about evolution and the structure of the human race as we know it." The man is announcing pompously in front of a bank of screens. "Unfortunately, due to sabotage of the highest order the creature was lost, and all hope of retrieving it vanished with the storm that followed."

The ticker at the bottom of the screen reads – Bizarre claims of disgraced scientist...

Sam frowns at the screen as, on the bank of monitors, some grainy footage begins to play.

"We have, however, combed the footage from our security system, which was not being monitored at the time. Now thought, it is our only link to the discovery that was..."

The tiny screens behind him show what look like snakes. Sam squints and the confused image resolves with his brain to become tentacles, tentacles...attached to...a man.

Sam blinks and looks again.

Nope, still a...merman? octodude? Whatever it is it's too weird for watching at the ass crack of dawn.

He's about to turn it off, when he sees something pale flash in the darkness amidst the tentacles. He freezes, thanks god for his fancy satellite box, and rewinds just to make perfectly sure that the heart attack he's having is justified.

Dean's Transylvanian protection tattoo...now minus septic ulcers and almost covered with the grasping tentacle of a man...type of thing...which looks, well...

Sam doesn't want to use the term 'O' face...but that is one Oct-O-face.

He looks at the scrap of message paper again.

"Oh Dean, what the hell have you done?" he mutters to the darkened room.

Short return to sleep notwithstanding, it takes Sam almost exactly a month to track Dean down from his short transmission. He thinks that's pretty awesome on his part, but then, he had a lot of motivation. Brother in the clutches of Octopus-man kind of lights a fire under anyone.

He rents a private craft and navigates his way, painfully cautious of the reefs, towards a small landmass that isn't even on a map, but that the locals assure him is there, despite the fact that they've never been to it. Why would they? After all there's nothing out there but a sandbar and an old bunker which can be seen for only about a mile before it's shrouded in mist and the strange geometry of the waves.

Sam's not thrilled about sailing solo, but he couldn't risk bringing anyone, clearly Dean is hiding for some reason.

He kind of feels like he's being watched.

It's ridiculous of course, there's nothing and nobody around to watch him...and yet...

Awareness prickles up his neck and every now and again a slightly louder thrashing of waves rises above the din of the ocean, like something breaking the surface and then going back under.

He's being paranoid he assures himself.

_Gabriel follows the craft as soon as it enters the perimeter of the reef. He can tell from the busy motions of the man on deck that he is sailing alone, but, judging by the size of him, he is not exactly in great need of back up. _

_Gabriel ends his observations and swims quickly back to the settlement of his brother. _

_The month they've spent there had greatly changed the place from his time there with Kali. Castiel spent much of his time in a large basin of salt water that Dean had set up for him inside, though he still took to the sea with Gabriel for hours at a time. His slowly forming pods had swollen to ripeness within the first few weeks, and, once Dean had been assured that the offspring of Castiel's body would go out to sea and mature before returning as adults, Dean had become cautiously enthusiastic about his new duties as protector of his 'brood mother'._

_Gabriel was intent on warning his brother, and by extension, his mate, of the oncoming visitor. His cry went up from the sea just beyond the tiny island, a shriek like that of a gull, that he knew would reach Castiel inside the shelter and alert him to the possible danger that was approaching them._

Sam shivered as the shrill sound carried to him across the waves. What in god's name was that? Aside from piss terrifying and unearthly? He clutched the navigational controls nervously and peered out into the darkening gloom. A sort of...shadowy, man-shaped nodule appeared on the island ahead of him. He cupped his hands to his eyes, then began to slow the craft and bring it into the slightly curved inlet.

A few meters from the shore, the shadow waved an arm over its head.

"Sam!"

Sam dropped anchor and lowered himself over the side of the boat, down to the sand and gritty stone mulch of the tide line.

"Dean?"

It was indeed his brother, wearing a thick green jumper, canvas pants and rubber boots, along with a new trail of thickening beard.

"You look like Crusoe." Sam points out, and Dean punches him on the arm, still grinning. "What the hell are you doing out here?" Sam demands. "I thought you were dead! You selfish, stupid..."

Dean flings his arms around him and hugs him.

Sam grunts at the constrictive weight. "You smell like fish." He complains.

"Glad to see you too." Dean smirks. "Come on in, I'll explain." He scrunches away over the sand. "How did you find me, by the way?" he frowns, "Don't tell me you let anyone else know..."

"Of course I didn't." Sam snaps. "Like I don't know a secret when I stumble onto one." He follows Dean to the door of the bunker, and into the dim, candle lit room. "You've been living here for a month?"

"Mmmhmm." Dean kicks off his boots and casts a worried eye to the large wooden tub in the corner of the room. Sam follows his gaze, it's just an empty tub, like a washing barrel from some Victorian movie, only filled with what looks like sea water.

"Why?" Sam prompts, when Dean offers no explanation.

Dean looks edgy.

"Why do I do anything?" he hedges.

"Dean." Sam warns.

"Ok...so there's a reason, but you're not going to believe..."

"Is it to do with a man, who's also an octopus?" Sam hazards casually.

Dean pauses.

"How did you know that?"

"It's on TV, some video of this...thing, in a tank, with you just a flash in the background, I saw your tattoo."

Dean looks appalled.

"They taped me?" he exclaims. "Of all the twisted, pervy, things to do, Zach taped me in Cas's..."

"Cas?" Sam frowns at him.

"Octopus Man's name." Dean says belligerently. "Who, I should probably give the all clear to." He slips his boots back on and clumps to the door, walking out and around the bunker to the rear of the island. Sam follows.

"You're going to freak when you see this." Dean says happily.

He whistles briskly and two heads surface from the waves like cautious seals.

Sam can't help it, he kind of...screams, but also chokes on his own spit which is...distracting to say the least.

"Sam...you ok?" Dean seems more concerned now. "I know it's a shock but...this is why I've been out here, trying to keep Cas and his brother safe from Zachariah, and staying with him too." He rubs a nervous hand over his beard as the two bobbing heads swim closer. "I'm kind of..._with_ him, Sam?"

Sam swallows and wipes the burning tears from his eyes.

"Dean..." he looks down at the slick, wet hair of one of the men, the one with the hawkish nose and dark brown eyes. "You know when I was ten, and dad took us to the beach..."

"Yeah." Dean says, the look on his face clearly implying that he thinks Sam has lost it.

"And I told you that...thing...came out of the water and stole my ice-cream? And you didn't believe me?"

"Because you were lying." Dean points out.

"No, Dean...A kid with tentacles came out from under the pier...and stole my ice-cream." Sam says, calmly. "And he's...floating...right there." He points at the offending creature.

Dean is silent for a second, then laughs, a sharp bark of laughter that gives way to silent hysterics.

_Gabriel gets the distinct sense that, not only is danger not imminent, but that Dean is familiar with the intruder...and that the intruder is accusing him of stealing something. 'Sam' is referring however to an item he has no reference for 'ice-cream' is not something he has ever heard people speaking of before, and certainly not something Kali taught him of. _

"_Dean?" he attracts the attention of the laughing mate of his brother and notices that his words cause the taller man to shrink away, as if he is frightened by his ability to speak his language._

_Humans._

"_You know this man?" He asks, more as a form of introduction than a genuine question._

"_Yes, this is my brother, Sam." Dean smiles a little, though his laughter is now in check. "Sam, this is Gabriel, who stole your ice-cream over a decade ago, and his brother Castiel...who's my..."_

"_Mate." Gabriel supplies, wondering how Dean had forgotten that word so suddenly. _

"_What?" the brother says, in such a slack jawed manner that Gabriel fears Dean may in fact be the most intelligent of his species - a sad look out for them all in his opinion. _

"_I am, indeed your brother's mate." Castiel speaks up beside him, his voice lower and more rasping with effort than when he speaks their own, more fluid language. _

Dean is never going to get used to Castiel being able to talk now, he's taken to his lessons like...well, an octopus to water.

Sam boggles at him with his mouth slightly open.

"This is so different to that chick in Barbados." Dean says, raising his hands in defence. "I've known him for months...I kind of also got him out of captivity." He continues. "Which is why we're hiding."

"I need...alcohol, and a chair." Sam manages.

"Ok, go inside and I'll...bring Cas." Dean stoops to the water and lifts the cold, wet torso of his mate up, feeling the long tentacles (which he's absurdly proud of – like 'my boyfriend has the best appendages' type pride) wrap around his body, gently holding them close with intimate familiarity.

They've gotten used to the whole 'having sex on dry land thing' not that Dean's going to drop that into conversation with Sam. He'd have to explain...and his sketches aren't quite finished yet.

Sam watches him, looking slightly green in the face.

"Yes, he's an octopus, try not to faint." Dean snaps. "Fancy picking up Gabe? Save me a trip?" he wheedles, but Sam already looks like he's about to puke, so he relents and ends up transporting both Enochians (oh yes, he's been busy – honeymoon sex, great as it is, is not a substitute for learning the name of the creature you're banging and getting familiar with its culture).

With Cas and Gabriel installed in the indoor tank. Dean waves Sam towards a chair and pours him some questionable wine, left over from Kali's time in the bunker.

"You're dating an octopus." Sam whispers.

"Yup." Dean says, pointedly casual.

"You're..."

"Yes Sam, I know." Dean sighs. "I wish I could break it a little more delicately...but there isn't really a way to do that." He drums his fingers on the table. "Is there really footage of us having sex, showing on TV?"

"...oh my god." Sam looks green again.

"I thought you said you'd seen it!"

"It was grainy!" Sam whines. "I didn't know exactly what you were...how would you...no, never tell me, ever."

Sam downs the rest of his wine and glares at the dregs.

Sometimes, he really hates his brother.


	9. Chapter 9

_The wrath of WIP's. Something had to give, and as I wrote this for the hot and spicy interspecies erotica – it can now reach its conclusion. I might sequel it sometime to tie up the babies and Sam and Gabriel (that sounded wrong). But there was very little to resolve in the present – so here is the bizarre conclusion. I attribute Sam's affable mood to Octocas breaking his brain with wrong-oddness._

"You love calamari." Sam points out, still only in the miserable 'just woken up' stage of his hangover.

"I can still eat squid." Dean says, without looking up from the fish he's pointedly filleting right in front of Sam's eyes, which are unfortunately connected to his roiling stomach.

"We also eat small sea creatures." Castiel points out, his tone and phrasing slightly off, implying that he's already in the middle of a sentence when he's only beginning. Castiel is lounging on the bed, stretching his...things, out on a towel in a lazy stretch. Sam still can't think the word 'tentacles' without almost retching.

"Damn right." Dean gestures at Castiel with the gutting knife, and Castiel smiles at the praise of his conversational skill.

Gabriel waves an...arm-like thing, from the tub pointedly. (Sam thinks he's worked out that such displays make him feel nauseous). "We also eat vegetation."

"And ice-cream." Sam can't help but point out.

Gabriel frowns.

"What is it that you are referring to? Ice-cream?" He asks, one appendage supporting his chin.

"It's a..." Dean frowns, fighting to rise to the challenge of explaining something as simple as ice-cream. "A white cold thing on a pointed dry thing." He says abortively. "It's sweet." He adds as an afterthought.

Gabriel furrows his brow extravagantly. His eyes brighten suddenly.

"I took this from you by the big bridge, south shore of the peninsula?"

"The pier." Dean corrects. "And yes."

Gabriel waves several gleaming brown limbs in remembered enjoyment. He turns his sparkling eyes on Sam.

"It was, most satisfying." He says, as if Sam had done him a favour by being unwary and loose fingered whilst close to the water.

"Good." Sam mutters insincerely.

Dean flicks a dot of fish blood onto Sam's hand. "Play nice with the in-laws."

"Yeah, should we talk about the fact that you're 'married'...to a creature that I only just found out about yesterday?"

"Technically you saw him on TV like a week ago." Dean points out.

"And I've also seen Bigfoot, doesn't mean I'll believe it until I meet it." Sam grimaces as his raised voice adds a few more screws to his pounding skull.

"You're bigfoot." Dean snickers. "Besides, what else do you want to know? I met Cas, we escaped, we live here now. Tribes up to three people, more when the spawn come back..."

"There's spawn?" Sam moans. "Seriously? Spawn?"

Dean shrugs. "Cas got all cosy in here and his body decided it was time to make little Enochians – they're maturing in the ocean some place."

Sam feels bile creep up his throat.

"That's gross."

Castiel looks affronted.

"My spawn are...awesome." He points out to the room at large, clearly plundering Dean's vocabulary.

"You said it." Dean cheers.

"How many...kids, have you got then?" Sam murmurs, trying to encourage a return to quieter speaking and saner topics.

Castiel shrugs, unable or unwilling to do the math.

Dean frowns.

"He had like, thirty pods on him, but when they came off some had two little baby...squid...type...embryo..."

Sam turns white, then green.

"...are you ok?" Dean asks.

Sam nods with difficulty.

"Anyway, some had two in them...so no idea what the final head count is." Dean shrugs.

"Some will be devoured." Castiel interjects. "Or they will cannibalise..."

Sam stumbles outside and retches into the grass.

"Cas...way too early for cannibalism." Dean remarks.

"Noted, I will try to remember." Castiel says, as if receiving an etiquette lesson. Dean sets his fish fillets into a pan to cook, cleans his hands on a rag and goes to sit with Castiel, feeling the dry, silky tentacles as Castiel raises them to twine around his body. Checking to make sure that Sam is still puking his guts out elsewhere, Dean kisses Castiel's peeling lips softly. The creature wriggles happily in anticipation.

"I cannot stand to not see you, while they are here." Castiel murmurs, stiltedly. Dean figures this is 'half learned English' talk for 'I can't wait to get alone and naked with you'. He reaches confidently, smoothly, for the organ underneath Castiel's writhing limbs. Castiel gasps, closing his eyes and humming happily.

Gabriel splashes heavily – the Enochian equivalent of coughing politely. Dean withdraws his hand and grins sheepishly at his brother in law. Gabriel has at least grown used to him, if not totally approving of a relationship that might land his brother in heart ache.

Same comes back inside, windswept and pale.

"You...are an ass." He grumbles.

Dean holds up his middle finger, Cas watches the gesture like a curious budgerigar.

Gabriel raises a few glistening limbs.

"Sam, it really is not sickening in nature." He chides, frowning as if the idea that Sam finds 'spawn' vomit inducing is odd and confusing.

"I didn't mean to offend you." Sam offers half heartedly. Gabriel seems appeased.

"Anyway...I was gonna name like...twenty of them Sam." Dean says amiably. "In honour of their uncle."

Sam flushes with pride despite himself.

Castiel fingers Dean's hair lovingly and Sam look away, embarrassed.

"We must name some after Gabriel...when they return." He smiles, looking for all the world like a fond mother. "Some may have his likeness – I do have similar genes."

Dean touches Castiel's face gently.

"And a few Dean and Castiel Jrs... maybe a Clint." He smirks.

Castiel is nuzzling his hand. Dean could probably name his children 'Calamari' and "Fish Sticks' for all Castiel cared at that moment.

Gabriel, having sunk beneath the water, emerges in a fit of indignant bubbles. He glances at the couple, wrapped up in each other, and turns to find Sam looking at him in an effort not to look at them.

"They will grow...perhaps, less sickening." Gabriel wonders aloud.

"Don't bet on it." Sam huffs. "As long as this is all I seem them doing, I think I can handle it."

Gabriel nods solemnly.

"If the mere notion of juveniles causes you to vomit, witnessing sexual activity would be unwise." A trace of impudent humour reaches the creatures brown eyes. "Doubtless you wouldn't be able to 'handle it'."

Sam frowns.

"I can handle sex – it's gross but it's not like I'd _cry_." He hisses.

Gabriel raises a sceptical eyebrow.

"Try me." Sam says.

Castiel, casting half an ear to this exchange, even as Dean kisses him delicately once more – rather thinks Sam may be speaking a little rashly.

Though he has learnt – impudently challenging the order of things in a rash way, might actually benefit the one doing the challenging – as the order was apt to recollect and reassert itself in a new and interesting way.

Or, as Dean might put it with his superior idioms – Tempting fate could pay off.


End file.
